A speech by a newly appointed AI minister sparked outrage, leading to opposition MPs throwing objects in parliament.
Last week, Albania’s parliament was thrown into disarray when the world’s first AI-generated government minister’s address provoked a strong reaction from opposition members.
Diella, the state minister for artificial intelligence, delivered a three-minute speech on two screens on Thursday, almost a week after Prime Minister Edi Rama announced its addition to his cabinet.
Diella, whose name means ‘sun’ in Albanian, has been integrated into the government’s digital services platform to manage public procurement. Rama sees the initiative as promoting transparency and innovation, helping to prevent corruption in tenders. A prototype of the avatar, dressed in traditional Albanian clothing, was first shown in January.
“I am not here to replace people but to help them,” the avatar stated to MPs, emphasizing its lack of citizenship, ambition, or personal interests and its capacity to embody values “as strictly as every human colleague, maybe even more.”
Opposition lawmakers denounced the appointment as unconstitutional, claiming the bot was not human, lacked Albanian nationality, and could increase corruption. The avatar defended itself, noting the constitution refers to “institutions at the people’s service,” not “chromosomes, flesh or blood,” and emphasizing duty, accountability, and transparency.
The session quickly dissolved into chaos, with lawmakers banging on desks and throwing bottles and copies of the constitution, leading to its premature end after just 24 minutes, despite the presence of foreign diplomats.
Politico previously reported that Rama intends to make Albania a cashless economy by 2030, aiming to discourage people from keeping money “under the mattress – next to their AK-47,” as a local joke suggests.
Public procurement has been a major source of corruption scandals in Albania, hindering its EU membership application since gaining candidate status in 2014.
As AI rapidly advances, researchers caution that some systems are learning to self-modify their code. Earlier this year, Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, urged governments to collaborate to ensure the technology’s rapid development does not harm humanity.
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